Principal's Report

Dear Families & Carers,

As we journey into the season of Lent, it is a great time to remember the core of what we are here to educate within our Catholic school. We are fair, compassionate and free of exclusion. We forgive and see Lent as the opportunity to renew our relationship with God.

At Our Lady's Primary School, we have a proud tradition of student houses. When students commence at Our Lady's, they are allocated into one of three houses: Delany (Blue), MacKillop (Red) or Panerang (Yellow). Traditionally these houses are used for sporting days but after consultation with the Grade 5/6 Leaders, we are looking to extend the use of our House Groups. This review of our leadership structure has also included a review of the leadership groups in which the students operate in to offer 'extra' activities to our school community.

With consultation at a Grade 5/6 student level, the following leadership groups have been approved for 2023;

House Captains (Social Group)
Wellbeing Group (Social Justice, Caring for Students)
Environment Group
Safety & Education Group

These groups may be renamed but these are the initial groups that the students would like to see active within our school. Along with the re-branding and thinking about groups is the idea of how we can make these groups sustainable and active in our community. Our tremendous Grade 5/6 group have lots of ideas so stay tuned.

Following feedback from our students, we will be commissioning all of our Grade 5/6's as FIRE Carriers in our school. The aim of the FIRE (Friends Igniting Reconciliation through Education) Carrier Project is to promote respect, fairness and inclusion for Aboriginal people. The FIRE Carrier Project promotes enculturation and reconciliation in Sandhurst schools. The FIRE Carrier project Covenant is like a Reconciliation Action Plan. To be a FIRE Carrier is to exercise an important leadership role in the school community. FIRE carriers are students and teachers that share a passion for learning about Aboriginal culture and history and are committed to sharing this knowledge and promoting reconciliation within and beyond the school community.

On Monday during our weekly Assembly, we announced to our student community the 2023 House Captain Leaders. Last week, all students in Grade 3 - 6 were given the opportunity to vote for who they believed would make a wonderful leader of each of our houses. The students within each House vote for who they believe would make a good leader so Delany students vote for the leaders of Delany and so on.

The following students have been elected by the student house community as leaders in each House:

We strongly believe however that all of our Grade 6 students are leaders in their own right, with or without the honour of being announced as House Captain. Our Grade 6 cohort of students are kind, caring and respectful individuals who are true examples of Our Lady's Primary School. Whilst I know there is disappointment as not everyone can be selected to be a House Captain, our student group is emotionally intelligent enough to celebrate the achievements of all. Our House Captains, along with our Grade 6 Leaders, will be blessed and receive their leadership badge during our Beginning of Year Mass on Tuesday the 7th of March at 12.00pm.

This year at Our Lady's we are aiming for increased attendance! At this point in time, I have a few students who are maintaining 100% attendance for Term 1. This is very exciting!!!! I will keep a very close eye on this group as they progress through the term. Attending school is vitally important for school success and success in the future. Stay tuned to see how we will acknowledge this group of students at the end of the term.

We are currently in negotiations with a provider to take over our Out of Hours School Care facility. This is proving to be problematic as there is a shortage of Regional Mangers within our local area. Regional Mangers take care of the bigger picture operations of the OHSC facility. As previously communicated, for Semester 1, we will continue to offer our OHSC facility for families. Fees per session will increase in cost to $20-00per session from the 6th of March, 2023. We will continue to update you as we know more. We have everything crossed for a positive outcome. Until then however, we will continue to negotiate with multiple providers to get the best possible outcome for our families. Stay tuned!

Blessings,

Cassie Lynch

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